Mind Flayer Player Race (Homebrew) (Illithid Exile)

[Simplexity]

*NOTE* This interpretation of a mindflayer loses its ability to eat brains. If you're looking for a race option of an illithid that does eat brains, this is not it

Introduction

The mind flayer/illithid is an iconic D&D monster, so there is no doubt that some people would love to play as it. However, with a CR of 7, and no level adjustments for monster characters in 5e, I was thinking of ways that I could possibly convince my DM to let me play as one. Obviously, there would have to be some major tweaking, but I think I found a concept that would both 1) make the illithid a balanced race and 2) have it make sense as to why the player's illithid is no longer with their hive.

I know that my interpretation of illithids as a player race takes away from what makes an illithid a mind flayer, but I think if you really want to play an illithid, this is a reasonable option

Illithid Exile
*NOTE* I'm pretty bad with flavortext, so I'll just give you the gist here. If you're good at it and want to write flavortext for this illithid exile, feel free to comment below and I'll put it in and source you.

There are two reasons as to why you are no longer with your hive & are missing your tentacles:
1) You lost them in a fight, therefore your fellow illithids rejected you from the hive for your inability to consume brains
2) You have done something terribly wrong, and have been exiled from your hive. As a parting gift, you've had your four tentacles removed.

Reasoning:
The obvious thing that makes an illithid overpowered is their ability to extract the brain. Therefore, the simplest way to balance the illithid is to remove this ability. Yes, it removes what makes an illithid an illithid, but there's a reason why the standard illithid is not a player race

Quirks:
You can use the table below to determine your illithid quirk:

[1] You believe your hive kept you alive because they thought you were too weak to do them any harm. You will do anything it takes to show them that they're wrong.
[2] You miss the cooperation of your hive. You do your best to keep your party working together as one- and feel it is your duty to intervene and assist when party member are not getting along.
[3] You miss the taste of brains, and often try to eat your party members' (only after you try do you remember that you can't anymore)
[4] Order is important to you, and you do everything in your power to ensure your fellow party member don't step out of line
[5] You believe that illithids are the master race- you see everyone else as if they are only animals
[6] You are believe yourself to know more than any common folk, and believe it's your duty to educate them

Illithid Exile Traits
Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1
Illithids are hyper-intellegent beings, explaining the int boost. They should also make decent sorcerers, so I gave them a Cha boost over a Wisdom boost

Age. Illithids live as tadpools for the first 10 years of their life, and reach adulthood around 20. They live to be about 125.
I was looking for information on illithid aging, and I found this one to be reasonable. (I'm still pretty new to this site so I can't link the source yet, sorry :/ ) I'm not sure how correct it is, but it seems reasonable.

Alignment. Although you were once part of an evil hive, you are not necessarily still evil. However, you are more inclined to be neutral than good. Also of your history, you also tend more to law than chaos.

Size. Illithids are roughly the size of humans, however they are slightly more slender.

Darkvision. Your illithid herritage grants you 60-ft superior darkvision.

Psionic Resistance. You have resistance to Psychic damage. Once you hit 8th level, you have advantage on intelligence saving throws against spells.
Normal illithids have advantage on all saving throws against spells, however that would be too strong. I thought that having advantage on only intelligence saving throws against spells would be flavorful, and by getting it at level 8 it tones down its power a bit.

Natural Psion. You are naturally born with psionic knowledge and abilities. You get proficiency in Arcana, as well as the psionic talent Mind Meld [see Psionics & the Mystics - Take Two under WotC's Unearthed Arcana] as a bonus talent. Once you reach 3rd level, you also get the Mind Blast psionic talent.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write in Common and Undercommon

Conclusion
Let me know what you think of this take on an illithid player race (other than 'it doesn't eat brains so it's stupid'), and please let me know if you thought about/end up using it in a campaign (and how it goes)!

[Spectre9000]

My biggest question about the Illithid is more from a RP standpoint... They eat brains... How would they survive outside of the hive in a world where eating brains isn't ok? I'm not saying it's stupid by any means, lol, but it's something I personally am trying to figure out as that seems to limit their expansion and survivability quite a lot outside the hive. I don't know of anything else they eat. Also, simply removing their tentacles wouldn't remove their ability to eat brains as that comes from the lamprey like mouth they have.


Anyway, as to the mechanical aspect whilst intelligence and charisma could fit, mechanically speaking, giving two spell casting ability score increases is akin to giving only one given that only one of those is generally going to be important. Outside of someone just wanting the flavor, its a big reason you don't see tieflings in optimization threads. Also, for languages I'd give them Deep Speech, as that's the natural language of Illithid. Also, I think I might increase the Darkvision out to 120 ft, and sunlight sensitivity (though you'd need to give them something else to balance this). They live in some of the deepest, darkest parts of the Underdark. Also, a Ghostwise Halflings telepathy would be good as they generally don't speak.

All in all, I feel this race is a little weak. Not much, mind you, but still sub-par.

Incidentally, I'd say you should make this into a base race with sub-races. In your race here, the Mind Flayer is a Psion, but traditionally, exiled Mind Flayers are much more likely to have been exiled for being arcane wielders, so you could perhaps go with a +1 Dex bonus on the base chassis, then +2 Int for the Arcanist, and +2 Cha or Wis on the Psion. Give the Psion the Natural Psion ability, and it'd be pretty good. Give the Arcanist maybe the Eldritch Blast cantrip and one or two other spells, and it'd be good.

[Caelestion]

So, you've turned their innate telepathic ability into a power that requires a bonus action each round and removed their natural ability to feed themselves. They're also now incapable of reading their native script, Qualith, as that requires their tentacles to do so.

I don't think that there are many spells at all that require Int saves - feeblemind and maybe one or two others. I do like the resistance to psychic damage, though.

I second the sunlight sensitivity and the Deep Speech.